


Catch the Wind, See Us Spin

by spectre_tabris



Series: hit me double hard au [2]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/F, Side Stories
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-02
Updated: 2017-02-17
Packaged: 2018-05-30 14:19:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 11,069
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6427330
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spectre_tabris/pseuds/spectre_tabris
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Outtakes and side stories from hit me double hard.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 10 Outtake

**Author's Note:**

> Basically this is intended to be the home of any side stories and one-shots I write in the hit me double hard 'verse. Each chapter is an independent story but they likely won't make sense without reading hmdh first.
> 
> Title is from Led Zeppelin's _What Is and What Should Never Be_.
> 
> Chapter 1: POV swap for the first part of hmdh Chapter 10

“Josephine, dearest, there is far too much blue in that one: it will clash with the lilies we’ve chosen. Surely you must see that.”

“There is not ‘too much’ blue; there is exactly the right amount of blue to accent the lilies without stealing attention from them.”

Cassandra’s inner romantic had started waging a slowly-losing battle with the more practical side of her personality the moment she stepped into the event planner’s office and by now it has reached the point where her inability (and disinclination) to hide her growing disinterest has become something of an annoyance to her companions. This particular conflict (the color scheme for the place settings at the reception, and Cassandra has never seen so many shades of bluish green in her entire life) is only the latest in a long line of decisions that have not so much been made as they have been acknowledged as a source of discontent between Leliana and Josephine and set aside to argue about later. It is all Cassandra can do to keep her sigh inaudible - she is riding the slender edge of Josephine’s patience as it is and it would be unwise to antagonize her any further. Though Josephine’s most likely reaction would be to kick Cassandra out of the room and as far as Cassandra is concerned that would resolve her current predicament quite handily. Leliana, however, would never forgive her for distressing her fiancee and her retribution would be much less palatable.

Cassandra rolls her neck, stretching out the kinks that have settled in after nearly three hours of sitting in an uncomfortable chair as the wedding planner - Maryville or Marjorie or whatever, Cassandra had not bothered to commit the woman’s name to memory - pulls out yet another overfilled binder full of color swatches and places it on the table between the brides-to-be.  She is no good at sitting around talking - she would much rather be _doing_ something: preparing the venue or picking up orders or even just acting as Leliana and Josephine’s glorified chauffeur, anything that isn’t sitting around in a room looking at pieces of fabric and binders full of colors that all look exactly the same. But Leliana pounces on the newest samples with a squeal as though it is not the sixth such binder she has been given in the last half hour, dragging it closer to her and scattering the various samples she had been examining previously.

With her companions otherwise occupied Cassandra pulls her cell phone from her pocket and types out a brief text, careful to keep the phone hidden beneath the table and safely concealed from Leliana’s too-sharp gaze. She cannot help but feel like the misbehaving schoolgirl she never truly was, hiding her misdeeds from her teacher’s eye. But if she is to be subjected to this torture then she will take advantage of any distraction she can think of, including new-found friends.

That is not to say that the text she sends to Kyra Lavellan is entirely self-serving. Though she hardly knows the man in question, it had been clear Saturday night that Kyra was worried about her friend. It cannot hurt to be certain that the intervening days have done nothing to validate that concern.

_How is Dorian?_

The response comes faster than Cassandra had anticipated and she sees Josephine’s head pop up from where she sits examining different colors for... something (are they still choosing napkins? Cassandra thinks so but she has not been paying full attention for some time) at the sound of Cassandra’s text alert. She fumbles to turn the device to silent, the heat of a flush crawling up the back of her neck.

“Something interesting?” Leliana asks, amusement curling through the words. Cassandra glares at her, an expression that has caused more than one witness to burst into tears in the middle of an interrogation room. Much to her dismay it has far less of an effect on Leliana, who simply watches her with a raised eyebrow and poorly-hidden smile.

“It is nothing,” Cassandra snaps, though her rush of defensiveness does not stop her from scanning Kyra’s response out of the corner of her eye. ( _still ok, as far as i know. wont say what happened but thats not a surprise. thanks again for your help that night by the way. i appreciate it_ ) Leliana makes a soft humming noise before the wedding planner - Maryden, that’s her name, Maryden - directs her attention back to the matter at hand with a discreet clearing of her throat.

“Look at this one, Leliana,” Josephine says, pointing to one of the twenty indistinguishable (at least as far as Cassandra is concerned) scraps of bluish fabric. “This, paired with the cerulean from your dress...”

Cassandra lets her eyes fall closed in quiet relief for a brief moment before she takes advantage of their inattention to send off a reply.

_Any time._

She feels a moment’s guilt at using Kyra as a distraction, potentially keeping her from something important, but if she is truly bothering her then surely Kyra would say as much.

Her phone screen lights up just as she is about to tuck it away and Cassandra pauses for long enough to read Kyras’s latest message.

_exciting plans for the day?_

She bites the inside of her cheek to keep from smiling at the revelation that her texts are not unwanted - despite an obvious chance to end the conversation, Kyra had chosen to continue it unprompted. It is the work of a moment to send her response and instead of putting her phone away as she had intended she leaves it balanced on her thigh, face-up so she can see it light up when it receives a message.

While she does not truly lose track of the discussion going on around her - even if it were in her nature to do so, her work would have quickly trained her to keep at least a portion of her attention on her surroundings at all times - she pays it less heed than perhaps she should have. She gets so distracted detailing her complaints to a sympathetic ear that she forgets she is supposed to be concealing her conversation from Josephine and Leliana lest they conspire to make her current situation even more unbearable. It is not until she catches the flutter of movement out of the corner of her eye that she realizes she has forgone all attempts at subtlety and is leaning back, phone in hand and blatantly disregarding everything going on around her. Josephine has pulled her attention from the sample books to smirk at Cassandra, a knowing expression that Cassandra is certain she picked up from her fiancee.

“Care to share?” she asks and Cassandra narrows her eyes.

“I said it is nothing.” Cassandra injects the words with every ounce of command she possesses, determined to make Josephine drop the subject. She moves to slide her phone back into her pocket in the hopes that removing the subject of the conversation will serve to end it but she had forgotten to account for the presence - and stealth - of Leliana. The redhead snags the phone from her hands before Cassandra even realizes she has moved, pulling back out of arm’s reach and wasting no time in scrolling through the phone’s contents. The instinctive rush of fury takes Cassandra by surprise, as somehow it always does, and she is halfway out of her chair and reaching for Leliana before she even processes the action.

“Josie, you must read these: they’re adorable!” Leliana coos as she dances away from Cassandra’s attempts to reach her. “Oh, stop it, Cassandra. If you did not want me to read them you should have done a better job of hiding them from me.”

Cassandra growls under her breath, drawing back away from the table as rational thought finally makes its way through her anger and she starts to regain control of both her actions and her emotions. She watches Leliana pass the phone to Josephine and considers her next move. While her blind rage is more likely to hurt than help the situation, she knows that she is well within her rights to be angry, to tear her phone from her friend’s grasp and storm from the room in a flurry of righteous wrath. Yet she does no such thing. Leliana has been her friend (perhaps her closest friend, though she knows Leliana does not consider her as such) for nearly a decade, more than enough time to become accustomed to her flagrant disregard for the privacy of others. At this point Leliana can get away with many things that should anyone else attempt the same would end with them bleeding on the ground, and it would seem that this is one of them.

Cassandra finds herself amending the thought even as she has it. Nearly anyone else. There is at least one other who, much to her constant confusion, seems to effortlessly slide through the many defensive barriers Cassandra uses to keep the world at a comfortable distance and seems to make a point of being the exception to her every rule.

Maryden clears her throat once more, doubtless an attempt to pull her wayward clients’ attention back to the actual purpose of the meeting (and Cassandra squashes the thought that it makes her sound rather like Delores Umbridge - it is an unfair comparison and she knows it, and anyway she refuses to admit to having read those books), but it has little effect. Leliana and Josephine are absorbed in their snooping, huddled together over Cassandra’s phone and her eyes narrow as she notices Josephine’s slender fingers flying across the screen. There is a limit to the liberties she will allow even Leliana to take and she rises to her feet to snatch the phone from Josephine’s hands with another glower. When combined with the lingering edges of her temper this one has more of an effect than the last and Cassandra feels a brief pang of guilt at Josephine’s resulting flinch. The guilt lasts only as long as it takes Cassandra to read the text Josephine has just sent to Kyra, after which she considers all of her irritation justified and resolves to never let her phone out of her hands again.

_Kyra, this is Josephine. Ignore Cassandra’s last message. You simply must join us - Cassandra is no help at all!_

“What are you _thinking_?” she snarls as she rushes to mitigate the damage Josephine’s text may have caused.

_I apologize - Leliana and Josephine demanded to know who I was texting so frequently and they managed to get their hands on my phone. Ignore them; they are a pair of interfering busybodies._

It is not that she does not want Kyra to join them - the elf’s sensible attitude would be a welcome change from her current company (and what is it about weddings that turns normally rational people into complete idiots? She cannot even exempt herself from this: the noise she made upon learning of the engagement is one that to this day she still refuses to admit ever left her mouth) but... well, as she had told Kyra in her text earlier, she cannot imagine anyone would willingly subject themselves to this and she does not want Kyra to feel pressured into joining her solely for her peace of mind. Had Kyra made the offer unprompted... but she did not and it is a waste of time to muse on might-have-beens.

It is Leliana, not Josephine, who responds to her demand. “We were thinking that your constant complaints are bordering on intolerable and that perhaps _she_ will be able to pull you out of your snit where we have failed, as even through text messages she manages to make you smile more openly than I have ever seen.” It is impossible to interpret Leliana’s tone, a mix of amusement, irritation, suspicion, and a dozen other elements that Cassandra has neither the skill nor the patience to untangle.

“I could always leave,” she mutters darkly, “if my presence is so off-putting.” She catches Maryden’s vigorous nod out of the corner of her eye and fixes the wedding planner with a glare, taking some satisfaction in the way she shrinks back into her seat with a quiet squeak.

The arrival of Kyra’s next text breaks up what could have spiraled into an ugly argument between Cassandra and Leliana, but a silent truce is called as Cassandra’s phone screen lights up with Kyra’s name.

_look, if you really dont want me there, say the word. promise i wont be bothered. otherwise just send me the damn address already and ill head over._

Cassandra does not know what expression she makes when she reads the message, the words equal parts thoughtful and insistent in a way Cassandra has never been able to manage, but whatever it is causes Josephine’s eyes to sparkle and Leliana’s smirk to twist into pure triumph.

“What does she say?” she asks in the irritating sing-song of one who believes they already know the answer to their question and are congratulating themselves on their genius.

“I...” Cassandra trails off, uncertain. Does she want Kyra there? Yes, absolutely. But surely the text cannot be serious: Kyra despises socializing - Cassandra had figured that much out within minutes of their meeting. There is no way she would agree to spend her free time with two women she hardly knows, regardless of how much Cassandra would appreciate her company.

Leliana rises to stand behind Cassandra and read the text over her shoulder. With a loud sigh that sounds suspiciously like “oh, Maker have mercy” she reaches around Cassandra to type the address of the event planner’s into the reply box before withdrawing, though she makes certain to nudge Cassandra’s shoulder as she retreats.

“There. Now send it and let’s be done with this already. Josie and I want your opinion on this color we are considering for place settings. I keep telling her that it will clash with my bridesmaids’ dresses, but she refuses to see it.”

Maryden sighs in relief from where she sits, as far from Cassandra and her temper as possible, undoubtedly pleased that the group’s focus seems to be moving back to where it should be.

Cassandra groans but sends the text before she can talk herself out of it. She allows Leliana to drag her back over to the table with its neglected color swatches as she calculates how long it is likely to take Kyra to arrive. Whatever method she uses to calculate it, the answer inevitably comes out to “too long” and she spares a moment to mourn the friendships her irritability is certain to ruin long before Kyra can arrive to rescue her. There is no possible way this ends well. For anyone.

Still, the thought of having someone to commiserate with does wonders to lift her spirits and even the thought of the inevitable flood of color swatches in her future is somehow less daunting with the realization that she will not be facing them - or Leliana and Josephine- alone.


	2. Chapter 12 Extra Scene: Leliana and Josephine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A couple of people asked for Josephine's reaction to Leliana's "talk" with Kyra in Chapter 12. Ask and ye shall receive.

When Leliana arrives at home to see her fiancee standing in the middle of their living room, hands propped on her hips and mouth pulled into a frown, she knows she is in trouble. She graces Josephine with a soft smile in an attempt to diffuse her anger even as she runs a mental review of the day, trying to determine what she had done to earn this particular shade of disapproving frown. They had parted on good terms that morning, Josie’s goodbye kiss sticky-sweet from the syrup of her morning waffles, so something must have happened during the day to sour her mood. When a brief consideration fails to unearth the answer, she caves and asks.

“What’s wrong, Josie?” She kicks off her heels and shrugs out of her coat and suit jacket, eyes never leaving Josephine’s face.

“What were you doing at the university this afternoon?” her fiancee asks, and it is Leliana’s turn to frown. That is what this is about?

She steps toward Josephine, hand outstretched, but stops at a warning look from Josephine.

“I had some business to take care of.” It is true, and she sees no need to mention that the business was personal rather than professional.

“In the physics department?” Josephine is the only person Leliana knows who can manage to fit that level of combined doubt and disapproval into a single sentence. It would be impressive if it were directed at someone else. Directed at her, it is less than endearing.

“Yes, Josie, in the physics department.” It does not even occur to her to question how Josephine knows of her visit that afternoon - just as Leliana has eyes and ears throughout the city, an elaborate network of bribes and threats that ensures she is never caught unaware by a bit of news or an erupting scandal, so Josephine has hers. “What is this about?”

Josephine glares, nostrils flaring, and Leliana’s eyes widen. This is serious, she realizes belatedly. This isn’t a matter of leaving dishes in the sink or raiding Josephine’s emergency supply of chocolate. Whatever it is Leliana has done, it will take more than an apology and a kiss to calm her fiancee.

“Don’t ‘what is this about’ me, Leliana,” Josephine snaps and if Leliana had not already recognized the severity of the situation, that would have given it away. Josephine never uses her full name, not unless she is thoroughly irate. “What did you say to Kyra?”

Leliana blinks. That is what all this is about? Kyra? She had spoken to the woman that afternoon, yes, but she cannot see how that would be something that would anger Josephine enough to cause this kind of reaction.

“I simply wanted to ask her some questions,” she says, frowning. Why would Josephine be so upset about -

Oh. Right.

“Maker have mercy. You threatened her, didn’t you?” Josephine cradles her forehead in her hand as though fighting off a headache. “Leliana, we have _discussed_ this. You cannot go around threatening everyone until they do what you want!”

Leliana scowls. Why must Josephine be so difficult about this? She crosses her arms and shifts her weight onto her heels, settling her stance. “It has served me well enough thus far,” she points out. “Or would you rather I had left that Ortranto to his own devices?”

The name makes Josephine tense, eyes dark, and it occurs to Leliana that she has gone a step too far. What is it about this woman that destroys her common sense, turns her silver tongue fat and awkward, makes her honeyed words catch and tangle in her throat? Love, she thinks (and not for the first time), is a pain in the ass.

“Josie,” she begins with every intention of apologizing and perhaps grovelling until Josephine forgets her ill-chosen words. Josephine silences her with a shake of her head.

“You know that’s not what I meant,” she says, and that seems to be as much as she is willing to discuss the matter, turning back to the topic at hand. “Tell me, Leliana, were you _trying_ to scare Kyra away, or was that just a convenient side effect?”

Leliana’s guilt evaporates as quickly as it had arrived. In this, at least, she stands by her decisions. “I was _trying_ to protect my friend.”

Josephine scoffs, a strangely indelicate sound from the normally elegant woman. “By chasing off the first real friend she has made in ten years? A friend, I might add, toward whom _you_ pushed her. Or had you forgotten that part?”

Leliana can feel the flush suffusing her cheeks, impossible to miss against the porcelain of her skin. Oh, she remembers. She remembers conspiring with Kyra’s friend at the bar to ensure that she and Cassandra could remain in contact, remembers inviting Kyra to their planning session to keep Cassandra company.

In her defense, she had not realized at the time of that second one just how far things had progressed. That planning session had been the impetus to arrange the conversation that has so infuriated Josephine.

“I was expecting a friendship more akin to the one she shares with the Iron Bull,” she admits, wincing at the depth of that particular misjudgment. “If even that much. I was not expecting this...” She doesn’t know how to end that sentence, does not have a word to describe the inexplicable bond between her friend and a near stranger. At least, not one she wants to use.

“Devotion,” Josephine finishes for her. “The word you’re looking for is devotion. Or perhaps loyalty, on both their parts. You cannot tell me you haven’t noticed how happy Cassandra is recently - I have never seen her so relaxed.”

“Exactly!” Leliana runs a hand through her hair, ruining the careful neatness of the strands. “That doesn’t strike you as odd?”

Her composure broken, Leliana stalks over to their couch and all but collapses onto it, elbows on her knees and chin propped on her clasped hands. “Here comes this Dalish woman, seemingly out of nowhere, and in under a month she has managed to charm the most closed-off person I have ever met without any apparent effort. And I am supposed to just accept that without question?” She looks up at Josephine, eyes wide, silently pleading with her to understand. “I had to make sure she wasn’t trying to use Cassandra for something, that she was genuine.”

Josephine sighs and sits beside Leliana, the rustle of her skirt loud in the quiet of the house. “And so in trying to protect your friend you chased away someone she cares for,” she says, voice more gentle than it has been since Leliana walked in the front door. “Congratulations. You realize that Cassandra may never forgive you for this? And she would be well within her rights.”

Leliana’s jaw drops in surprise. Oh. _Oh. That’s_ what this is about. All of a sudden Josephine’s fury makes so much more sense and Leliana cannot help the relieved laugh that escapes her.

“Oh, Josie, no. I didn’t scare her away.”

Josephine frowns, caught off guard. “You - what?”

“You heard me.” Leliana relaxes back into the couch, a weight lifting off her shoulders. “I did question her, yes. I questioned her, I threatened her, I even used my most intimidating frown - you know, the one that made your duke friend wet himself at that soiree last summer?”

“And Kyra did not run in the other direction?” Josephine asks as though she cannot quite wrap her head around the idea. “Kyra Lavellan, who was terrified of our very presence when we first met? That Kyra?”

Leliana laughs again at the confusion in Josephine’s voice, covering her mouth with one long-fingered hand. “Would you believe she yelled at me?”

There is a moment of stunned silence as Josephine gapes, her lovely face a picture of total incomprehension. Leliana offers her a sympathetic smile.

“I think we may have misjudged her, Josie,” she murmurs, this admission less difficult to acknowledge than the last. “Both of us. Me by doubting her honesty and you by doubting her courage.”

“We will have to find a way to make it up to her,” Josephine says, still dazed, and Leliana’s heart swells with love for the woman beside her. Of course that is her first reaction.

“I have a few ideas on the matter,” she admits, reaching out to wrap her hand around Josephine’s. When her fiancee does not pull away, she breathes a quiet sigh of relief. “We can discuss them later.”

“As you wish, beloved.”

At the sound of the endearment the last of the tension falls from Leliana’s body. They are okay. The crisis has been averted. She can breathe again.

But Josephine’s next words destroy her brief moment of relief.

“You do realize that the fact that it ended well this time does not mean that you can continue like this,” Josephine murmurs, thumb warm where it strokes gentle circles on the back of Leliana’s hand. “What if it hadn’t? And how do you think Cassandra would react, should she find out what you did?”

Leliana sighs. Crisis _not_ averted, it seems. She closes her eyes and leans against the back of the couch, head tipped back. “That point has already been made,” she mutters, thinking back to Kyra’s words that afternoon. There is a pause as Josephine considers this, then a quiet “oh” once she understands what Leliana means.

“You know, I think I am going to like that girl,” she says and Leliana can hear the surprised approval in her voice.

“I thought you might,” she replies around a fond smile. The smile fades with her next words, somber mood returning. “But, Josie, I cannot stop doing everything in my power to protect my friends. That’s not who I am.”

Josephine’s grip on her hand tightens and when she speaks her voice is soothing instead of condemning. “You are going to have to try. Cassandra does not need you to protect her from her own decisions, especially when that means going behind her back to do it.”

Leliana opens her eyes to glare helplessly at the ceiling. “And when someone inevitably betrays her?” she demands, because how does Josephine not understand this? “Or you? Or Lex? Am I just supposed to sit back and let it happen?”

Josephine untangles her hand from Leliana’s to card through her hair, curling delicate fingers through the short strands. Leliana leans into the touch with a sigh.

“You could always try talking to us about it,” she suggests. The words draw a laugh from Leliana as she turns her head - careful not to dislodge the hand in her hair - to meet warm brown eyes.

“‘Niceness before knives’?” she asks in a flawless mimicry of her fiancee’s gentle Antivan accent, a remnant of her years spent as an actress what seems like a lifetime ago. Josephine giggles as she leans forward to press their foreheads together, the sound wrapping around Leliana’s shoulders like a hug, warm and familiar.

“Exactly, my dearest.”

Leliana sighs, breath ghosting across Josephine’s face. “I cannot promise that I will stop trying to protect you,” she whispers, a secret breathed into the space between them. “Any of you. I will try to be less...antagonistic about it, though. But only because you asked.”

Josephine’s answering smile is a gift well worth the promise it took to earn. “Thank you,” she murmurs. She brings their mouths together in a soft kiss and by silent agreement the discussion is set aside in favor of other, more enjoyable pursuits.


	3. Pokemon Go is a menace

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Pokemon Go craze hits Skyhold. The fallout is not quite what you might expect.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> On the list of things I never thought I'd write, "Dragon Age/Pokemon Go modern AU crossover" was pretty much the top of the list. So there's that. Also, this is entirely archertethras's fault and I claim no responsibility for it in any way whatsoever.
> 
> Set at some vague point in the future after the events of the main story.

Kyra would admit (under duress and only if no one involved was anywhere in earshot) that this might, possibly, maybe have been entirely her fault. In her defense, she hadn’t expected it to be such a big deal - Sera introduced her to the game and while it seemed interesting enough, a fun distraction for boring days, she would never have imagined it would have such an impact on her life. But her naive misconceptions were not the point: the point was that a fucking children’s game was going to lead to the dissolution of her relationship.

...It was possible that she was overreacting. A little.

She was the one to first download the game and she was the one who dragged Cassandra out to the Skyhold Botanical Gardens on a quest for new Pokemon (she had spent at least ten hours in the past week and a half scouring the Skyhold University campus for anything that wasn’t a Pidgey or Rattata and coming up empty and if she saw one more Creators-forsaken Zubat she would not be held responsible for her actions - she needed a change of scenery before she snapped and _actually_ murdered someone). So she supposed that yes, when looked at in a certain way it could be argued that she brought this on herself.

It started out innocently enough, with Cassandra quietly amused by her partner’s enthusiasm for hunting down strange little creatures. By the end of their first hour wandering the park Kyra had even convinced her to download the game herself and they entertained each other as they sought out new and unusual Pokemon to add to their collections. All in all, it ended up turning into one of the more enjoyable afternoons Kyra had spent in quite a while.

After they got home, Cassandra didn’t mention the game or Pokemon at all for several days and Kyra chalked up her earlier interest to a willingness to indulge Kyra’s own oddities, an indulgence for which Kyra was privately grateful. It was not until later in the week when she woke up in the middle of the night to an empty bed where a sleeping girlfriend should have been that Kyra began to suspect that something was off. While waking up alone when she certainly didn’t go to bed that way was not an uncommon occurrence - Kyra had long since acclimatized to the somewhat unpredictable schedule of a detective - Cassandra usually made it a habit to ensure that Kyra knew when she had to leave in the middle of the night. It made for less worrying all around. But this time there had been no whispered words or note left by the bed and Kyra could not help her growing concern. It did not take her long, however, to find Cassandra sitting on the couch in her pajamas, scowling at her phone and while Kyra’s first thought was a late-night problem at work, the guilty flush across Cassandra’s cheeks the moment she realized she was no longer alone put paid to that idea. The closest thing Kyra got to an explanation was an embarrassed “there was a Ponyta on the coffee table,” and it took her long moments to process the idea that Cassandra was awake at three in the morning on a work night because she wanted to catch a Pokemon. Cassandra had been playing - rather obsessively, it would seem - this entire time and Kyra hadn’t even realised it.

That was the true start of it all.

In retrospect, they should probably have discussed teams before the decisions were made, but neither of them had thought it would be any kind of problem. Why would it be? Kyra chose Team Mystic (because, really, what else was she going to choose?) and only learned after the fact that Cassandra had joined Valor.

Which was fine. Really. In the grand scheme of things a team rivalry in a damn Pokemon game was hardly going to affect their relationship. The entire idea was preposterous.

Except that Kyra had failed to take into account just how competitive Cassandra was. Their first visit to the Fade after the game’s release led to the discovery that the cafe now housed a Pokemon gym. It didn’t take long after that for their coffee date to devolve into a series of increasingly vicious battles to claim possession of said gym for their chosen team (while Kyra had the larger selection of high-level Pokemon from which to choose and more familiarity with the franchise as a whole, Cassandra’s more thorough grasp of the tactics involved put them on fairly even footing). At some point someone - while no one would admit to it, Kyra privately suspected that Varric was somehow behind the entire thing - started a tally sheet with tick marks added every time the gym changed hands. It hung on the wall behind their usual table, the count growing with each passing visit. (Poor Cole, who was a proud member of Team Instinct and who Kyra suspected had never tried to battle anyone in his entire tenure as a Pokemon trainer, spent entire shifts staring forlornly at them, horrified by the sudden enmity between two of his favorite customers. Kyra would have felt sorry for him were she not busy defending the honor of Team Mystic.)

For a while things got...bad. In the interests of preserving peace and harmony (and their relationship), the word “Pokemon” quickly became taboo in the Pentaghast-Lavellan household (and it took almost no time at all for their friends to learn not to _ever_ mention starter Pokemon around the two of them - no amount of initial entertainment was worth the shitshow that inevitably ensued), but that didn’t stop it from invading their lives.

There was a Pokestop just outside the physics building at the university that Sera and Dagna kept well-stocked with lures (the pair seemed to have an endless supply of them and Kyra could not for the life of her figure out how they could afford it) and Kyra discovered a sudden fondness for doing her paperwork outdoors that had nothing to do with camping out at the Pokestop, she swore. She just enjoyed the fresh air - any comments about her spending half an hour scouring the underbrush for an Abra that was _supposedly_ lurking nearby were nothing but lies and slander.

She only found out later that Cassandra was doing the exact same thing at the Pokestop conveniently located within her precinct and that the selection of Pokemon lured there was unfairly more varied than on campus (Kyra hadn’t been kidding about those damned Pidgeys and Rattatas; by the end of her first day playing she had already earned the second badge level in both “Schoolkid” and “Bird Keeper”). Once she discovered that, Kyra suspected she had _also_ found the reason behind Cassandra’s deplorable choice of team - apparently the entire precinct had joined Valor _en masse_. (She refused to believe that there might have been other explanations for Cassandra’s selection, as that would destroy all faith she had in her partner’s decision-making abilities and for the sake of their relationship she just couldn’t do it.)

So work became Pokemon harvesting time and dates were spent surreptitiously (and not-so-surreptitiously) checking phones for nearby Pokemon and the whole thing was well on its way toward utter disaster. Until one evening, about a month into their preoccupation with what was ostensibly a kid’s game, when they were at the Fade, glaring at each other over their coffee cups as they finish the latest round of battles for ownership of the nearby gym, and the little marker on their screen shifted from grey to...not blue, but _yellow_.

Without a word passing between them they came to a temporary truce as they investigated the phenomenon. The gym was now held by a single Instinct trainer with a username Kyra didn’t recognize and a Gengar whose CP was so high her first thought was that it had to be a glitch. A glance over at Cassandra, who was frowning down at her own phone with her brows drawn together, told Kyra that she was just as confused and they traded baffled looks - Cole looking on in curiosity now that they no longer seemed liable to kill each other - until the door to the coffeeshop swung open and a _very_ familiar figure sauntered in to settle into an empty chair beside Kyra.

(Dorian had never even bothered to mention that he played the damn game, the smug bastard, not once in the four weeks Kyra had been ranting to him about it. Surely that violated some sort of best friend code, right?)

On the positive side, that proved to be the impetus Kyra and Cassandra needed to set aside their Pokemon-induced rivalry: all it took was one look at Dorian’s gloating grin for the temporary truce between them to become permanent, joining forces against the usurper of their domain. After all, as history had shown, there was very little that united as effectively as a common enemy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So...yeah. archertethras sent me [this post](http://jamemcavoy.tumblr.com/post/147321042062/important-otp-question-who-drags-the-other-to-go) and the following comment:
> 
> "Ok is it the obvious choice with Kyra dragging Cass out or is it the surprise choice where Cass is secretly hooked on Pokemon Go and Kyra catches her in the act and Cass is like 'well now she knows anyway so she's coming with me'"
> 
> and it just sort of...spiraled from there.


	4. The Pursuit of An Ideal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Cassandra and Emotions sit down and have a long chat about how _not_ to be completely oblivious.

In nearly four decades of life, Cassandra has never been given cause to question her sexuality. On the rare occasion she has been attracted to anyone at all, it has always been to a man. So when Kyra Lavellan calls her straight that first evening at the Fade, an embarrassed flush still staining the gentle curve of her cheeks, Cassandra agrees without even a hint of hesitation.

Months go by before she has cause to give it any more thought than that.

Nothing about the evening is in any way remarkable: Kyra was working late in her lab and Cassandra, stuck in the lull between cases with her own project stalled, had picked up dinner for the both of them. But that was hours ago and now they are sitting across from one another in the battered old chairs in the matchbox room that passes for the Skyhold University physics lounge as Kyra attempts to explain some astronomical phenomenon or another, her actual work long forgotten. Cassandra has lost track of the exact topic of Kyra’s impromptu lecture - while she is far from unintelligent, physics is a topic that has only recently begun to hold any interest for her - her attention instead fixed on the way Kyra’s hands move as she talks, illustrating her points with elaborate flourishes and the occasional angry slash.

There is something almost magic about those hands, Cassandra thinks absently, a subtle grace that not even the knowledge of the vicious scars hidden behind the black cotton of her glove can mar. Cassandra remembers how those hands felt clasped in her own, warm and soft and deceptively strong. She wants to reach out, to twine her fingers through Kyra’s, pull her forward and -

“Honestly the mental image of a pair of middle-aged men with a ridiculous number of letters after their names clambering around what is effectively a giant horn, scrubbing at pigeon droppings, is pretty much the - Cassandra?”

Cassandra’s senses crash back into her at the sound of her name and her eyes are wide as she meets Kyra’s concerned stare. What is she _thinking_?

“Is everything all right?” Kyra asks. “You look like you’re about a million miles away.”

“I...” Cassandra trails off, still trying to understand what had just happened. Pull Kyra forward and _what_ , exactly?

But Cassandra has never been good at lying, even to herself, and she cannot pretend she does not know exactly where that thought was headed. What she does not understand is _why_.

She knows, objectively, that Kyra is an attractive woman, but attractive or no Cassandra is not interested in women. She should not be sitting here contemplating the way Kyra’s hands would feel in hers, the way Kyra’s breath might catch in her throat or a flush rise in her cheeks.

It was a fluke, she decides, the result of too much time spent helping Leliana and Josephine with their wedding, all the talk of love and relationships infecting Cassandra’s thoughts. Or perhaps it has simply been too long since she made a friend; she is confusing platonic affection and fondness for something it is not. It was a fluke, a one-time occurrence best ignored entirely. For it to be anything else is impossible.

That decided, she returns her attention back to Kyra, careful to keep her focus where it belong - on her friend’s words and not the fluttering of her hands or the curve of her mouth.

“I apologize, Kyra. I was...momentarily distracted.”

“By anything interesting?”

Cassandra forces her face into impassivity, willing away an embarrassed blush. “Nothing of note.”

Kyra nods and while she does not appear entirely convinced she seems willing to leave it at that. With one more searching look in Cassandra’s direction, she guides the conversation back to safer topics. Cassandra pays more attention this time, keeping a tight reign on her errant thoughts.

 

 

But it turns out that ignoring that single “fluke” is more difficult than Cassandra had anticipated. More than once over the next few weeks she finds her attention caught by seemingly innocuous little things about her friend. The glint in her eye the first time she manages to get the upper hand against Sera during their self-defense class. The curl of her smile just before she makes a terrible joke. The way she hides her face behind the curtain of her hair when she is embarrassed. It is distracting and even worse, it is _confusing_. Cassandra does not understand what is going on.

The thoughts won’t leave her alone, defying any sort of rational explanation, and the uncertainty makes Cassandra snappish and irritable. Oh, not around Kyra - despite her near-constant state of confusion regarding the woman, Kyra’s presence still somehow manages to soothe the edges of Cassandra’s volatile temper - but her coworkers have taken to avoiding her as much as possible for fear of falling victim to her sharp tongue. Even Cullen has commented on it, his words laced with an edge of exasperation that none of her colleagues would ever dare use.

Maker only knows how long this state of affairs would have gone on had the Iron Bull not taken it upon himself to step in. At the end of class one evening, Sera wastes no time at all in grabbing Kyra by the wrist and dragging her off in the direction of the locker rooms with no more of an explanation than “secret scientist stuff” and “you’ll get her back in a bit,” and Cassandra is left staring at the now empty doorway in a stunned sort of bewilderment.

As the Iron Bull approaches her with an easy grin, Cassandra begins to suspect Sera’s “secret scientist stuff” to be little more than an elaborate setup to give Cassandra and Bull some privacy. For what, she cannot begin to fathom, but she watches him warily regardless. While her relationship with Bull is far friendlier than Cassandra would ever have expected it to become, there is a streak of mischief in him that, especially in tandem with the force of utter chaos that is Sera, Cassandra has learned not to trust.

“So, Cass,” he says, the angle of his smirk triggering defensive instincts Cassandra has not needed since her days as a beat cop so long ago. She crosses her arms over her chest and says nothing, unwilling to play into whatever he is planning.

Her silence does little to dissuade him, which is hardly a surprise. Few people are as immune to her ill-temper as the Iron Bull. “How long are you gonna carry that torch of yours before you do something about it?”

Her eyes narrow and without any conscious thought her stance shifts into something a little less open, a little more confrontational. Bull raises an eyebrow at the movement but he does not comment on it.

“I do not know what you are talking about,” she snaps. Bull chuckles, a deep rumble of a sound.

“You and the boss,” he clarifies with a grin that is closer to a leer than anything else. Outrage bubbles within Cassandra at the expression, countless objections to the implication and the presumption behind it rising to the tip of her tongue. Before she can collect herself to respond in any way beyond shouting at her friend, Bull has already resumed speaking, each word making Cassandra less and less inclined to continue this conversation.

“You’re into her; pretty sure she’s into you. You planning on just dancing around each other forever or are you actually gonna do something about it?”

“There is nothing to ‘do something about’,” she growls, threat curling through the words. Though Bull raises his hands in surrender, that infuriating grin does not leave his face.

“Have it your way, then,” he says but Cassandra is unconvinced of the sincerity of his sudden capitulation. “I just figured, you’ve been looking at her differently lately. Thought that meant you’d figured it out. Guess not.”

Cassandra bites down the urge to ask what that is supposed to mean, “figured it out;” she has no interest in encouraging him to continue this conversation. She can guess what he is trying to say, regardless, and she has already determined it to be nonsense.

Equally so is his claim about Kyra. If she were interested in anything beyond the friendship they now share, Cassandra would have noticed. There would have been signs, changes in Kyra’s behavior or attitude, and Cassandra has seen none of that. Kyra has just been Kyra, awkward and a little anxious but hardly behaving as though she is harboring some secret desire. Bull is seeing things that are not there.

She finds the thought inexplicably disappointing.

“That is enough, Bull.” She injects enough command in her voice to make even Bull drop the subject, though the silence that follows is hardly any better. She feels as though she can hear Bull’s self-satisfaction radiating from across the room and it is all she can do to keep herself from verbally lashing out once more. Bull’s comments have unsettled her more than she cares to admit and she does not know why.

A commotion out in the hall keeps her from dwelling on it and she looks up to see Kyra standing in the doorway, hair wet from the showers, glowering at a frustrated-looking Sera. She turns away with an irritated shake of her head and when she sees Cassandra her expression softens into a fond smile.

“You ready?” she asks.

Cassandra’s ill-temper melts away at the sight of Kyra, a strange warmth bubbling in her chest. Happiness, she decides as she follows her friend out the door with little more than a curt farewell to Sera and Bull. Kyra makes her happy. Anything else is irrelevant and she resolves to put it out of her mind.

 

 

She is moderately successful, at least for a while, too busy building a case against Chief Corin and arguing with Varric and dodging Leliana’s wedding-related meddling to worry about any odd feelings she may have toward the one person who seems determined to help make Cassandra’s life easier, rather than more complicated. But she cannot quite banish Bull’s words from her thoughts, cannot forget the gentle certainty with which he spoke, and the more time she spends with Kyra the harder it becomes to ignore the fact that he might not have been entirely wrong.

Her friendship with Kyra has always been unique, but Cassandra has never had reason to consider why that might be. She has always just accepted the fact that Kyra is special to her, that her presence affects Cassandra in ways that Bull’s or Cullen’s or even Leliana’s never have.

Now, curled up on her couch after returning from Leliana and Josephine’s wedding, coffee mug in hand and formal wear exchanged for comfortable pajamas, she forces herself to think about it, to figure out exactly what Kyra is to her.

She is a friend, that much is unquestionable. She is someone Cassandra cares about, someone she trusts. Someone whose presence makes her happy.

But that is just friendship, isn’t it? And their friendship was never in doubt. The question she needs an answer to is whether it is also something else, something distinctly less platonic.

Is she attracted to Kyra Lavellan? Setting aside for the moment the fact that Kyra is a woman, can Cassandra see herself in a romantic relationship with her? Can she see herself kissing Kyra, holding her, taking her to bed?

A slow flush rises in her cheeks at the mental images that engenders, at the thought of her hands in Kyra’s hair - would it be soft? It looks like it would be soft and Cassandra is suddenly desperate to know if that is true - and Kyra’s mouth on hers, of the sounds Kyra might make as Cassandra kissed her. She would be demanding, Cassandra thinks, hesitant at first until she knew she was welcome, then fierce and insistent and -

Oh.

Well.

That answers that question.

And the fact that Kyra is a woman? Does that change anything? It would seem that it does not. Which raises certain questions of its own, questions Cassandra has no way to answer.

She is romantically interested in Kyra. Even just in her head there is a degree of surrealism to the words and she thinks it might take her some time to fully adjust to this new realization.

In the meantime, she must determine what to do about it. She cannot sit here mired in indecision indefinitely. Should she tell Kyra about her interest? She stands by her assertion that Kyra’s feelings toward her are strictly platonic, her early attraction a passing physical interest long-since faded, and she does not have any expectations of reciprocation. But she does not like the idea of keeping secrets from Kyra, even ones like this. And with how terrible a liar Cassandra is, in all likelihood Kyra will figure it out on her own soon enough.

Still, Cassandra has no desire to burden her friend, not if she can help it. The last thing she wants to do is make things awkward between them and she fears that telling Kyra about this would do exactly that.

In the end, she decides, it is not worth concerning Kyra with what is undoubtedly a fleeting attraction. Far better to ignore it, wait for it to fade and for everything to return to the way it should be.

 

 

The problem with this plan, however, is that the feelings _don’t_ fade, instead growing stronger with each passing day despite Cassandra’s best attempts at quashing them. Even handling the fallout from Varric’s article does not distract her the way it should: she still finds herself dialing Kyra’s number whenever she has a moment to spare, letting Kyra’s voice and the quiet comfort of her words soothe away the stress of the entire situation. Cassandra doesn’t know what Kyra gets from their conversations, but she never fails to answer and there is always enough warmth in her voice when she greets Cassandra that she does not fear she is taking advantage - for whatever reason, Kyra seems to take as much pleasure in their calls as Cassandra does.

By the end of the second week Cassandra has gotten to the point where she reaches for her phone as she leaves the precinct every night without any conscious thought, instinctively seeking out the one person who can calm the helpless frustration boiling through her veins. The action carries a sense of...not routine, exactly, but perhaps constancy, like she could see herself five, ten years in the future, after another taxing day, doing the exact same thing.

Except her mind, sleep-deprived and stress-ridden as it is, carries that thought several steps forward, throwing out images far removed from her current situation. Images where, instead of recounting her troubles to Kyra over the phone she does so from their shared couch, her head in Kyra’s lap and Kyra’s fingers in her hair soothing away the headaches she cannot seem to avoid.

The thought is so peaceful, so comfortable and domestic that Cassandra cannot quite believe herself. Those are not the musings of someone in the midst of a temporary crush, and she is not naive enough to pretend otherwise. That is...

She does not even want to think it, the idea something strange and terrifying. But she has never been one to hide from the truth, no matter what it is. Even this.

Love. This is love.

She is in love with Kyra Lavellan.

Oh, Maker give her strength. What is she supposed to do about this?

For the first time in two weeks, she does not call Kyra that night. She has too much on her mind to be able to hold any sort of coherent conversation, and for once none of it has anything to do with work.

They offer her the promotion the next morning.

 

 

When Detective Vallen and her partner (or perhaps junior partner? After two weeks of working together Cassandra still has not quite figured out _how_ the relationship between Aveline Vallen and Carver Hawke works, only that it does) take Cassandra aside the morning after Lucius Corin is arrested, Cassandra is not certain what to expect. An acknowledgement of her efforts during the investigation, at best; an inquiry into her own professional history, at worst. She is certainly _not_ expecting Detective Vallen to sit down and tell her bluntly that she had been recommended to fill a vacant position at the headquarters in Val Royeaux. Cassandra listens to her explain the position, the duties and the salary and the benefits, numb with shock.

It is an amazing offer: Cassandra has been working for years to get an opportunity like this. While she does not care about the increase in pay - what she makes now is more than enough to support herself - the thought of how much more she could do to help people if she were in a position like that...how can she turn that down?

She is no fool - she knows that by accepting the promotion she would be giving up working on cases, would spend her time behind a desk, mired in politics and paperwork. She knows she would hate a large portion of the role. But can she justify turning it down? What does her happiness matter when compared to the good she could do, the changes she could enact?

The one thing she does not allow herself to consider is the relocation that the promotion would entail. She will not think about the distance it would put between her and her friends, between her and Kyra. That is not relevant.

At least she now knows what to do about her feelings for Kyra. Nothing. There would be no point.

She does not pretend she is not disappointed by that fact.

So she inclines her head toward Detective Vallen and thanks her for the opportunity, none of the turmoil inside her visible on her face. Aveline hands her the paperwork that will make her acceptance official with stern instructions to return it within a week, then takes her leave, leaving Cassandra alone in an empty office staring at the papers in her hand.

Even if she cannot manage to be excited about this opportunity, she should at least be proud. This is an acknowledgement of both her dedication and her abilities. It is a good thing.

If that is true, then why does she feel vaguely nauseous just thinking about it?

She goes about her duties for the day with her mind only half on the tasks at hand, the rest of it still wrapped up in the slim packet of papers sitting innocently in the top drawer of her desk.

She does not call Kyra that night, either.

 

 

In the days following, Cassandra does not intentionally ignore Kyra, not truly. She is simply busy - covering Lucius’s duties, handling the lingering effects of the article, and trying to do her own job in the few moments she is not occupied with either of those - and everything else falls by the wayside. And if throwing herself into her work has the added effect of distracting her from Kyra, preventing her from imagining the look on her friend’s face when Cassandra tells her about her impending promotion (and the associated relocation), then so be it.

She does not even realize how long it has been since they last spoke until Kyra shows up at her front door, fire in her eyes and hurt in her voice, beautiful in her rage, the expression on her face filling Cassandra with guilt.

This is the first time Cassandra has seen Kyra since admitting (if only to herself) the depths of her feelings for her. But between Kyra’s obvious distress and the other news Cassandra has to share, the thought barely has time to surface before Cassandra shoves it aside in favor of making sure Kyra is all right. The next few minutes are a whirlwind of emotions and explanations and everything goes about how Cassandra had expected (though with somewhat more hugging, an adjustment that she cannot bring herself to mind) right up until she mentions Val Royeaux.

She had anticipated that Kyra would be upset, of course. The distance, after all, would complicate what until now has been a surprisingly easy friendship. But the strength of Kyra’s reaction - that _is_ a surprise.

Kyra pales faster than Cassandra had thought possible and her eyes, already wide with mingled fear and concern, take on almost comically large proportions. She looks as though she might faint and Cassandra does not understand. This...this is not how Kyra is supposed to react. It is too extreme, even for someone as anxiety-ridden as Kyra. Cassandra is missing something, some factor that would make this make sense, and she needs to know what. Kyra’s words offer no answers, stilted congratulations that ring false even as they trip off her tongue. For the first time in far too long - months, at least, not since those first hesitant days when they were still feeling their way around each other - Cassandra examines Kyra, bringing to bear all her long years of observation and investigation, studying her friend with the same kind of scrutiny she would a suspect in her interrogation room. She forces herself to see Kyra through objective eyes, rather than through a lens warped by months of friendship and familiarity and love. Once she does, she almost cannot believe her eyes.

No, surely she is seeing things, reading her own emotions reflected back at her in Kyra’s eyes. Kyra does not - does she?

“Because you are in love with me.”

It is a statement and a question both: for all Cassandra’s faith in her own abilities, she does not trust what she is seeing. She needs confirmation.

And she gets it. Kyra does not even try to deny it and Cassandra feels as though her entire reality has shifted one step to the side with this new information. She had thought - she had been so certain that Kyra did not feel as she did, that her affections were one-sided. She mentally runs through every interaction she can remember having with Kyra in search of something she overlooked, some sign that should have shown her the truth. But she can think of nothing.

How has she missed this? And for how long?

It takes her long moments to recover from the shock, moments Kyra uses to flee. Cassandra watches her front door slam shut with the ringing certainty that she has made a terrible mistake. She should have stopped her, should go after her and make sure Kyra knows that -

That Kyra knows _what_ , exactly? That Cassandra loves her, too, but that it will not stop her from leaving for Val Royeaux in a few weeks? How will that help the situation?

Cassandra fists her hands in her hair and growls in frustration. Is that even the case, though? She cannot deny that she has felt conflicted about this promotion from the moment it was offered, hesitant when she should have been pleased. This morning she had every intention of going through with it anyway, the opportunities worth the associated unhappiness on her part. Can she still bring herself to do that, even now that she knows it also means giving up a chance at something so much more than she had ever thought possible? Is it selfish of her to want to stay, to want to see where things go with Kyra?

She had never thought she would be tempted to place her own desires ahead of her duty. But then, she had never expected to fall in love, either.

Cassandra is paralyzed with indecision, torn in two wildly different directions with no idea what to do. It is not a feeling she is accustomed to and it takes her almost no time at all to decide that she _hates_ it.

She gives herself two days to come to a decision, two days to determine if what she and Kyra might have is worth giving up a once in a lifetime career opportunity. Two days to determine if, for once in her life, she will allow herself to be selfish.

In the end, the decision takes her less than an hour. (She always has been decisive.) Still, she will wait until Monday, until she can meet with Detective Vallen and formally turn down the promotion. She wants to have everything sorted out before approaching Kyra, wants to be able to talk to her without this hanging over their heads like an executioner’s axe.

 

 

Cassandra cannot recall ever being so anxious for a weekend to end, but though Sunday seems to drag on forever, eventually Monday morning does arrive and she wastes no time in making her way to the precinct. Her conversation with Aveline and Carver is short and to the point and Cassandra refuses to read too much into the complete lack of surprise on Aveline’s face or the smug satisfaction radiating from Carver. She walks away from the meeting feeling lighter than she has in weeks, confidence returning now that she is actually _doing_ something rather than sitting at home and brooding.

Her plan is to go to Kyra’s as soon as she leaves work, eager to settle things once and for all. She will not leave things as they are, stuck in a strange sort of holding pattern, any longer than she must; she cannot do that to Kyra.

But she should have known better than to expect anything to go according to plan. Her entire department is busy to the point of madness the entire day and by the time she is finally able to escape, dodging a slew of “one more thing” and “before you go,” the sun has long-since set and it is far too late to justify a visit no matter how much she might desire it. So despite her best intentions it is not until Tuesday afternoon - three days after their conversation, and Maker only knows what Kyra must be thinking right now - that Cassandra manages to make it to Kyra’s apartment building, the climb up the four flights of stairs to her door more exhausting than any marathon. Each step she takes winds her nerves that much tighter; it takes a concentrated effort to ignore the part of her that insists on telling her what a terrible idea this is. But Cassandra has never once backed down merely because something was difficult and when she reaches for the doorbell her hand is steady.

She just prays that Kyra is home.


	5. Poetry in the Raw

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cassandra, Kyra, and the vagaries of names.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay so this is more an extended explanation of a headcanon than it is a proper fic, but whatever. I'm posting it anyway. It is also an attempt to get back into the habit of writing after not doing anything of the sort for far too long...
> 
> Title from a quote by W.H. Auden: "Proper names are poetry in the raw. Like all poetry they are untranslatable."

Cassandra has never had much in the way of an emotional attachment to her name, neither a strong fondness nor a marked distaste. It is perfectly serviceable (so long as one ignores the preponderance of middle names with which her parents saddled her), if somewhat lengthy, and that is about the extent of her feelings on the matter for a very long time.

Until Kyra.

Kyra, Cassandra learns soon after meeting her, is an incredibly expressive person. She wears her every emotion writ large across her face in a way that is utterly foreign to Cassandra and the depth and breadth of the feeling she infuses into her words turns every conversation into a private look into her heart. That open expressiveness, that unselfconscious honesty is one of the things that first drew Cassandra to Kyra, back in that bar so long ago and during their phone call the next morning, a key factor in her decision to disregard her usual practices and actively seek out Kyra’s friendship. And as that friendship deepens into love, as Kyra stops trying to conceal the truth of her feelings and lets herself express them instead, Cassandra finds herself having to reevaluate her opinion of her own name (along with a great many other things: sudden reexamination of long-held world views seems to be a side effect of Kyra’s presence in her life, one Cassandra is still trying to get used to). What Cassandra had always seen as little more than a designation, a means of identification, Kyra imbues with love and with warmth, turning it into something new and wonderful until Cassandra almost does not recognize it, startled by the easy way it slips from her lover’s tongue, the variations and inflections she adds to what Cassandra had always thought to be a fairly simple word.

She is “Cassandra” when they are in public, their relationship far from secret but not something they flaunt (it is _theirs_ , private and precious and not for others’ eyes). But for all that the name itself is familiar the affection behind it is not: even the veneer of formality cannot disguise the fondness with which Kyra speaks it.

When Kyra wants to seduce, her eyes heavy-lidded, awkwardness exchanged for a fierce sensuality that is as surprising as it is alluring, her name becomes “Cas _san_ dra,” the middle syllable drawn out like a sigh, and Cassandra is helpless to do anything but respond.

In her anger, Kyra takes that same name and strips the care from it, turning it from an endearment into a weapon in her arsenal, a vicious collection of sharp consonants and sibilance with none of the gentle affection from before and Cassandra has taken bullets that hurt less than the sound of that voice snarling her name like a curse.

Alone, just the two of them, she is “Cass,” short and simple and always, always spoken around a smile. Though others before Kyra have used the nickname, Cassandra has never heard it spoken with the easy affection that seems to come so naturally to Kyra. Where other couples have _honey_ or _sweetheart_ Cassandra has _Cass_ , and she would not trade it for all the pet names in the world.

And finally, when Kyra is sprawled out across their shared bed, fingers tangled in the sheets and so close to the edge she is gasping with it, “Cass” becomes “ _Cass_ ,” more a breath than a name, a prayer and a plea, and it is the most beautiful sound Cassandra has ever heard.

Each time her name falls from Kyra’s lips, regardless of how or why she says it, another piece of Cassandra’s indifference to it fades away. She learns, little by little, to appreciate her name, won over by Kyra’s obvious love, both for the name and for Cassandra herself. Kyra is infectious with her delight, her refusal to accept that anyone might not share her adoration of those she loves, and when confronted with that kind of stubbornness, what else can Cassandra do but let herself be swayed?


End file.
